The Face of Time - POV - Aarhus Universitet

A Danish Journal of Film Studies 55
else to watch your student film with you. You can really feel the
length with an audience, no matter how small. Viewing it now, I
think I let a few shots in the very first scene go on too long. But, I
think you can get away with that more at the start of the film.
Were you inspired by any short films in particular?
I can't say that Ohagi was directly inspired by any short films in
particular, but one of the best short films I've ever seen is also about
kids in school. It's a love story fable packed with comedy called,
Mad Boy I'll Blow Your Blues Away, Be Mine. It was directed by a USC
student named Adam Collis. It is so funny and touching and entertaining
in a very short period of time. It has much more energy and
fun than my film.
Do you feel that storytelling in the short fiction film is essentially the same
as storytelling in the feature film? Or does the short tell a story in ways
that are not found in the feature?
I can't say I know how to tell a feature length story but I would
guess that in many ways they are similar. If you are attempting a
straight narrative, a character needs to face a challenge or a conflict
and you need to get the audience to care about his goal or predicament.
In both cases, unlike a novel, you need to express to the
audience in shorthand things about your character, his situation and
background. In a feature script, as I understand it, you get about 15
minutes or pages to establish the status quo and the characters. In a
short that's what you usually get for the entire movie. But in a
feature there are usually more characters. In both cases you should
be trying to trim the fat, cutting most scenes that don't have anything
to do with pushing the story forward. Now that's a standard
Hollywood goal-oriented model. There are other types of storytel-